1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to storing texture state in independent structures, and, more specifically, to binding a texture header to a texture sampler for use by a graphics processor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional graphics applications programming interfaces (APIs) use a unified state structure to specify texture state. The texture state includes texture map specific characteristics and texture processing attributes. More recently, a graphics API separates the texture state, storing the texture map specific characteristics in a texture header structure and the texture processing attributes in a texture sampler structure. Separating the texture state allows greater flexibility for pairing a particular texture sampler state with more than one texture header state without storing a copy of the texture sampler state with each of the texture header states. Conversely, a particular texture header state may be paired with more than one texture sampler state.
Accordingly, it is desirable to store texture state provided by a conventional graphics API using a unified state structure in the texture header structure and texture sampler structure used by the graphics API supporting the separate texture state structures. Graphics processors may then execute shader programs provided by a conventional graphics API or the graphics API that supports separate texture state structures.